However, despite the price advantage compared to first-tier vendors, the fierce pricing competition among white-box vendors mean their products are hardly profitable.

To stand out from the competition, some white-box vendors have added niche applications to their tablets. A white-box vendor has integrated its 7-inch tablet with a Playstation Portable to allow gaming on the device, while China-based OTC has released a tablet featuring China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting (CMMB) system for watching TV shows wirelessly.

Some other vendors showcased tablets for children’s learning and on-board entertainment at the show.

The China Sourcing Fair, Electronics & Components – Asia’s leading show for advanced electronics and the B2B platform of choice for a large number of buyers – will be held by Global Sources at AsiaWorld-Expo, Hong Kong on April 12-15, 2013. Allwinner Technology will attend the fair and showcase tablets, Android IPTV boxes and other smart end-products based on its latest quad-core A31/A31s, dual-core A20 and single-core series application processors.

Just as Actions touts its mixed signal heritage, Allwinner claims expertise in mixed signals as what separates the company from its competitors in the tablet market. Indeed, according to Xue, Allwinner has been designing a separate, custom power management unit tuned for each of its apps processors.

“Analog/digital technology, lower power management and multimedia capabilities are the three strengths of Allwinner,” said Xue. …

Xue made it clear that Allwinner has a two-prong strategy. “We plan to pursue both — combined baseband/apps processors and standalone apps processors.”

However, he also made the case for standalone apps processors, which will always survive in products such as gaming, imaging and communication connectivity apps. Further, he added, “As the world moves to LTE and LTE-Advanced, we believe that multimedia functions become even more important than before, and people want advanced standalone apps processors.”

How does Allwinner plan to get the baseband technology, then? To develop baseband chips on its own would require a significant investment. “Most likely, we’ll be licensing baseband IPs,” said Xue, who stopped short of naming a provider.

…

Of course, anyone who visits a China fabless that supplies apps processors will get an earful about “turnkey solutions.” Allwinner’s no exception. But when asked how their turnkey solution would be different from MediaTek’s, for example, Xue said, “The biggest problem with turnkey solutions today is that they don’t offer much differentiation for ODMs/OEMs,” since a typical turnkey solution includes every component one needs to build a tablet or a smartphone.

Allwinner’s goal is to offer more diversified choices to whitebox vendors and ODMs/OEMs.

The company takes the approach of sharing a reference platform with its entire ecosystem partners in the supply chain (boards, parts and components vendors, software developers and hardware box manufacturers) so that they, too, can participate in the platform.

“Think about building a house,” said Xue. “If you are a system company, you want to choose different windows, different doors and different furniture for your own house. You want to diversify.”

The process of building a reference platform needs to be interactive. The goal is to allow a system vendor who wants to build its own house to pick a window among many different types available. The key is that each window needs to have been already designed to fit the house — or a fit the reference platform, Xue explained.

Most of those in the supply chain with whom Allwinner has been working are based in the Pearl River Delta. But some are now also from other parts of Asia or Europe, Xue added.Today, Allwinner has 460 employees, 400 of whom are “R&D engineers,” including a sizeable number of software engineers, according to the company.

Not to be outdone by Actions’ huge HQ on the edge of Zhuhai, Allwinner is currently building its own dream home, which will be ready next year.

Design house partners (from the Allwinner booth video embedded below), they are all from China:

Allwinner Technology has an enormous booth showing off some of the latest implementations of their A31, A31s and A20 chipsets.

The quad-core A31 has been available for four months and already shipped more than 1 million units. The quad-core A31s started shipping at the end of March 2013 and has the same quad-core and GPU but is geared towards smaller displays (with less memory bandwidth.) They have introduced the A20 dual-core chip, at a price point quite close to the single core [$7].

Their booth showed more than a dozen HDMI stick and small set-top box like computers. One of the dongles was running the mobile-oriented A20 SoC, which could be poised to take over that market at low cost. The A20 is a low-cost, dual-core Cortex-A7. The A20 is pin compatible with the A10 and offers integrated support for camera sensors. This is looking like a very capable chip to power a variety of low cost devices.

The Allwinner booth was showing off a very cool gamepad built with the A31, running Android 4.1, a built-in screen with 1280 x 800 resolution, and game controllers on the left and right sides of the screen. It works like a self-contained gamepad but also serves as a game controller that can product the game on a large HDMI display. The controller has front and back facing cameras, 1GB of DDR3 and 16GB of internal storage. There was no English-name known for the device, which was developed by http://www.ibenx.com, one of Allwinner’s many partners.

Wits-Technology was showing a development kit for Allwinner’s chips Other partners showed off full-sized and micro projectors built with Allwinner chips. A mobile karaoke amplifier with built-in tablet display was built around Allwinner chips. A novel, Android-based 13.3″ clamshell laptop was running the A20; faster A31 based laptops are expected later this month. Shenzhen Next-Huawen Technology Co., a design house, was showing off their tablet with keyboard dock. Allwinner says they are studying ChromeOS and also considering support for Linux based distributions like Ubuntu. The company says they have released software supporting the A31 to the open source community through a British company. Does anyone have a contact for that open source partner?

… If you would like to register your interest in an EOMA-68 CPU card with an Allwinner A31 CPU, please follow the instructions at the orders page. … Unsurprisingly, this CPU has been chosen as the first CPU for an EOMA-68 CPU module. The critical decisive factor however was the immediate support of Allwinner’s Board of Directors for releasing full GPL Source Code, to help the RHT Initiative to foster better relations and closer ties with Free Software Developers. …

The 2013 China Sourcing Fair: Electronics and Components, an exhibition organized by Global Sources to help link volume buyers and China-based manufacturers, is taking place in Hong Kong during April 12-15.

The show will host more than 3,500 booths. Nearly 84% of exhibitors are China-based makers, and about 14% are Taiwan- and Hong Kong-based ones.

The exhibition features Asia’s largest in-car electronics and GPS device pavilions as well as Asia’s first and largest pavilions for iProduct (iPhone, iPad etc.)

Feihong Industry Co. Ltd showing their 7″ Allwinner A13 tablet, costing $45 for 5000 units. They can produce up to 30.000 units of this tablet per month. They also show various other products like the 9.7″ A31 Quad-Core tablet with 1280×800 IPS display, Qualcomm Quad-Core phone and VIA WM8865 Android Notebook (costing $84). Feihong Industry Co. Ltd can produce up to 60.000 tablets every month. Thanks CG for title/describing this video at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!forum/armdevices-unlisted

A subsidiary of Jingwah Electronics [京华电子], we were established in February, 2000 to focus on the design and manufacture of mobile telephones, GPS, notebook computer, MP3 players, digital voice recorders, mobile phones, GPS and laptop. Major OEM/ODM clients we’ve served include Sanyo, Radio Shack, Scott, and Teknos. We dedicate 40% of our output for export markets, delivering to North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Sales quantity currently totals 300.000 pcs every month.

We send our R&D staff to the US and Korea for training and market research. Our catalog currently contains over 40 models for your selection. Backed by our parent company’s 24 years of experience, plus SigmaTel software from the US, our 40 R&D team members introduce 20 new products annually.

Operations at our 200,000 square meter factory are ISO 9001 certified. Monthly capacity for MP3 players is 50,000 units. We are equipped with Samsung SMT equipment, and source ICs from Toshiba and Samsung.

Delivery is guaranteed in 25 days. Contact us now to learn more about our capabilities.

Shenzhen Jingwah Electronics Co., Ltd. [深圳市京华电子股份有限公司] (hereinafter referred to as Jingwah) is owned by Nanjing Panda Electronics Company Limited [南京熊猫电子股份有限公司] and Shenzhen Power Investment Co., Ltd. [深圳中电投资 股份有限公司合] as a joint venture, joint-stock enterprise. The company was founded in 1980, is one of the earliest established in Shenzhen in 1993 to become joint-stock enterprises approved by the Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government. The Jingwah company along with the creation and the pace of development of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, the rapid growth on the scale, diversification of the Group companies. After three decades of struggling, the company has registered capital of 115.07 million Yuan, more than 450 million yuan in fixed assets, more than 4000 employees , with doctors, masters and bachelor degree engineering and technical personnel more than 500 people , but also has a number of good at to explore reforms and the persistent pursuit of the management team, the formation of human resources and capital accumulation.

The Jingwah corporate headquarters is located in the bustling Huaqiang North, Futian District, Shenzhen has an area of 3 million square meters, construction area of more than 10,000 square meters of their own homes. 1999 Capital Realty Company headquarters compound for the development of market-oriented management, has become the shopping malls, hotels, communications supporting the market in one of the busy commercial districts. With the expanding production and operation, the Beijing company has established in Longgang Pinghu covers an area of 15 million square meters of Jinghua Industrial City; covers an area of in Changping, Dongguan .

Jingwah has been pursuing a policy of “science and technology innovation enterprise”, to achieve the country’s first self-production of tape recorders, in the 1986 to 1996 , the annual output ranked first in the country, movement recorder output bit ranking first in the world. 98 years after the company began to transfer to the new-tech industry. Around the digital core industries, has developed Jingwah digital, Jingwah multimedia, Jingwah lighting more than 10 industrial companies, a number of independent patent, including the Capitol information, has also been identified as “National High-tech Enterprise”. Now, Jinghua products have been exported to the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Russia and other countries. Jingwah has won China “, the title of” national machinery and electronics industry 100 export advanced enterprises “,” Guangdong Province outstanding enterprises “; the Metropole” JW “trademark has won” Shenzhen City Top Ten Famous Brand “and” Guangdong Province “title.

Rich and the source, public-spirited. Start 1994 in Taihe County, Jiangxi Province, donated “Beijing Hope Primary School”, ten years like a day of emotional ties to Project Hope, a total contribution of funds totaling 200 million; the Jingwah timely helping hand Wenchuan earthquake, Yushu earthquake, Southwest drought and other disasters ; Jingwah trade unions, the Communist Youth League for many years to organize young employees collective obligation to donate blood for the Red Cross, and actively organize the Jingwah volunteers to participate in voluntary community labor. Jingwah volunteer station was named outstanding volunteer service stations in Shenzhen, on several occasions by the higher-level units of the Shenzhen Communist Youth League and the Zhushen Mission Work recognition. In 30 years, the Beijing accumulated profits and taxes paid to the state $ 500 million a year to provide the community with a large number of jobs.

“Unity, innovation, pragmatism and efficiency,” Jinghua company has consistently adhered to the spirit of enterprise.In the rapid development of science and technology today, there is no eternal coronation, only permanent struggle.Jinghua the company’s staff, high-spirited, with a new attitude toward the new target swagger past glories glory.

Ainol is shipping a wide range of 7″, 8 9″ and 10″ tablets. They are a leading provider and brand name for tablets. Their staff of 600 operates a factory in Shenzhen with production capacity of 100,000 units per month. They are shipping to Chinese, European and US markets with sales currently concentrated in South Asia markets (Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, and South Korea.)

Their low-cost model starts out at $50 wholesale. The Novo 7″ Venus has a screen resolution of 1280 x 800 and runs an Actions-semi quad-core A9 at a wholesale price of $95. The Novo 10″ comes with an Actions quad-core A9 at a wholesale price of $145. Their 9.7″ offers a Retina screen, with Allwinner’s A31 Boxchip, and a wholesale price of $180. The tablets offer different industrial designs snd are engineered with various processors, but they all reportedly provide HDMI ports. Their models based on the Actions processor running Android 4.2.2 support wireless display technology called Miracast: anything displayed on the tablet’s screen can be wirelessly shared with a TV connected to a receiver box.

GU are showing their Quad-Core line of tablets equipped with Allwinner A31,Rockchip RK3188 and Actions ATM7029 processors. 8″ Actions ATM7029 Quad-Core tablet with a resolution of 1024×768, only costing $89. 7,85″ Super-slim Allwinner A31 tablet, costing $98. Minimum order quantity of 1.000 units, currently they produce 2.000 units a month. 9,7″ Rockchip RK3188 tablet equipped with an IPS display with a resolution of 1280×800. GU sell up to 100.000 tablets a month. Thanks CG for title/describing this video at https://groups.google.com/forum/?from&#8230;

Maxevis shows their new 8″ Allwinner A31 tablet with 2GB of ram. The tablet price is $100 per unit when ordering 2.000 units, an additional Bluetooth keyboard costs $14. The company also shows their new 10.1″ tablet model, available by the end of May. Another tablet the company is offering is the 10.1″ Allwinner A31S Dual-Core tablet with 1280×800 screen. Maxevis sells 50.000 tablets every month, their factory is located in Shenzhen

Freelander Link-Create manufactures about 2000 tablets or/and phones per day in this factory in Shenzhen China. Freelander makes and sells a whole range of Allwinner A31, Exynos 4412, MediaTek MT6577/6589 and other tablets and smartphones. But they were just making some MediaTek and Exynos based tablets the day (week-end) I was there. Check back for more on Freelander at http://ARMdevices.net in the next few days. I’m going to try to visit their factory again also while there are more people working making some of these newer devices.